Professor Brian Martin, the sociologist of science from Wollongong University, Australia, first entered the origins of AIDS debate in 1991, when he arranged for the publication of Louis Pascal's seminal monograph on the OPV theory: "What Happens When Science Goes Bad?". He has never concealed his belief that the OPV hypothesis has not been fairly treated by mainstream Science, and since about 1997, he has given me a great deal of helpful feedback on my work. During the last 15 years he has written a number of essays on origins-of-AIDS - and his sense of fairness and balance, plus his track-record as a defender of free speech in Science, have won the respect of all sides in the debate. At the Royal Society conference in 2000, he made a speech on "The burden of proof and the origin of AIDS" which caused a significant amount of defensive anger among supporters of Hilary Koprowski and the bushmeat theory. In his latest essay on "Contested Testimony", available here, he examines the question of whose testimony on key issues such as the CHAT campaigns in Africa (that gathered by Stanley Plotkin and associates, or that gathered by Edward Hooper and associates) is more likely to be reliable.

On June 6th, 2006, I submitted the following letter ("The Origins of Pandemic HIV-1: A Different Hypothesis") to "Science" magazine, in response to Keele and Hahn's paper about Cameroonian chimp SIVs, published in late May in Science express.

This letter contains 300 words, the maximum permitted by Science for letters to the editor, and I also submitted a version at 358 words, which included some material about the flimsy nature of the phylogenetic dating of HIV-1.

On June 9th, I received a rejection note from "Science editorial" by e-mail. It did not afford the possibility of discussion or reply.

Given the history of rejection by Science and Nature of all submissions which question the hegemony of the bushmeat hypothesis of origin, this latest rejection letter is perhaps not surprising.

The Aids road to hell: is it paved with good intentions?

The pandemic began in Africa. Yes, but why and how?

Joseph Benarrous, Forthcoming in Politique Africaine Translated from the French.

It is not my intention in this study to comment on the staggering numbers of victims of the Aids pandemic, but rather to try and assess our knowledge to date as to what has caused the illness and the factors that have enabled it to spread so easily. This will also be an opportunity to bring to the fore once more, against the prevailing amnesia, the way in which the colonial powers have used Africa as a trial ground and Africans as experiment fodder, albeit under the guise of humanitarian aid. At the present time, when we are spending a lot of time holding forth on the physical impossibility of providing care in the poor countries, it is certainly difficult, but useful nonetheless, consider the question from an opposite standpoint.

The paper presented by Edward Hooper at the 2001 Lincei Conference, published in Atti dei Convegni Lincei; 2003; 187; 27-230.

This major essay, based on the speech Ed Hooper gave at the National Academy of Lincei, in Rome, in September 2001, was originally prepared for publication in the house journal, Atti dei Convegni Lincei. It is over 200 pages long, and represents Hooper's major published response to the web of disinformation and misleading claims that certain members of the scientific community have created in response to "The River", and in the wake of the Royal Society meeting on "Origins of HIV and the AIDS epidemic". Hooper suggests that this essay represents useful base-line reading for any visitors to this site who are seriously interested in the question of how the AIDS pandemic began.